Live From the MarsRoom at JPL!

Please note: This image may ocasionally be off-line
due to Operational Readiness Testing at JPL.

What you are seeing are live pictures of the MarsRoom
and the Mission Operations Room, part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's
Mars Pathfinder Mission Support Area.

The MarsRoom is a unique environment at JPL. The floor of the room is
covered with sand and littered with rocks. This arrangement allows Mars
Pathfinder engineers and scientists to run operational tests and simulations
"end-to-end", and understand how all the components of this complex
spacecraft work together. This includes using the Imager
for Mars Pathfinder to acquire images, as it will do on Mars, for guiding
the Rover in its operations. Similarly,
the Rover will take pictures of the lander and its surroundings so that
Rover engineers can also conduct their own operational tests (driving around
the landscape, avoiding obstacles, etc.).

Although we cannot duplicate Martian gravity,temperature, winds, lighting,
and other factors, the configuration can be set to challenge the engineers
and the equipment, and enable them to run many operational tests before
the mission arrives at Mars. We will be ready to face almost anything!

This engineering model of Pathfinder is real in almost every respect.
Most everything on it functions just as it will on Mars. In the center of
the picture, you can see the Rover sitting on the petal waiting to drive
down on the "surface". Toward the right, the white structure you
see is the "brains" of the spacecraft, the enclosure where the
electronics would normally reside. In this case, however, we have the "brains"
in the next room, in our Test Bed. They are connected by cables running
through the wall to the spacecraft.

The Rover is also correct in almost every aspect of its construction.
However, because of the light levels which are not correct for Mars, it
has no solar panel, and uses a small fan that can be seen on its top to
help cool the electronics while it is operating. The Rover also communicates
to the lander "brains" in the Test Bed via its UHF radio link.
The cables you can see snaking along the floor are connected to a Solar
Panel Simulator that is used to feed the correct amount of power to the
Rover, just as if it were on Mars and using the light levels there. Another
cable powers the fan.

All these arrangements allow Mars Pathfinder and Rover engineers to continue
running tests and simulations on the spacecraft, exactly as if it were July
of this year. For example, the "brains" of the spacecraft residing
in the Test Bed are currently being told that Pathfinder is cruising toward
Mars. Each time the Mars Pathfinder team conducts and Operational Readiness
Test (ORT), data is fed into the spacecraft computer telling it that it
is decelerating through the martian atmosphere, radar contact with the surface
is being acquired, and the parachute, bridle and airbags
are being deployed. The computer in turn responds with the correct sequence
of events, just as planned. Later on, different factors will be fed into
the "brains" to test how it responds to various conditions it
might encounter at Mars.